is this the fight that the obama administration really wants to take up freshly inaugurated, freshly into its new term to try to map out big, bold leadership instead of digging these trenches down the line that are going to have pitfalls and stakes all buried in it? >> i come from the school of thought that this country has overcome a lot more than just a few extra dollars. i do believe that this economy will continue to thrive, this economy will continue to move forward. i don't believe that we're going to go into a huge, deep recession again if these bush tax cuts expire. i do believe that you can strengthen the economy if you let everything go off the cliff and come back and put in front of the american people and do a better job for the economy. there's up side either way you go. the president has got boehner in an untenable position. he doesn't have very many avenues to a victory right now but he's got a good escape, thomas. all john boehner has to do to exit out of this quickly is to say he won the election, we didn't, the american people in every survey say this is where we're